First Days
by Pinkie Tuscadaro
Summary: 1st person account of Craig's first days at Degrassi, ninth grade.


New school. I hated being at a new school. I knew this was the time before the comfortable little click. For now I was on my own. Ninth grade. That sucked to be on your own in ninth grade. No friends yet. But I'd make friends, probably. I figured I would.

That kid I slammed into when I was looking for the media immersion room, Sean, he seemed pretty cool. At first he sort of seemed like a jerk, insulting me. But I joked with him and he laughed and I think he'll be okay.

Fell asleep in homeroom, man, that sucks. The teacher's gonna think I'm a fuck up. Or maybe that I'm on drugs or something. Who knows what teachers think. The worst, I think.

I tried to talk to people, you know? Like that girl Paige, but she looked at me all condescendingly and then she was sarcastic. She's sort of the popular bitchy type.

I was in that drama class, which is pretty cool. I might like pretending to be someone else for awhile. But we all had to stand up and talk about ourselves. I hate that. I watched the other kids getting up there and talking and I just dreaded my turn. What would I say? I thought about being just brutally honest up there, scaring everyone. I couldn't really say anything too truthful because my life was actually a little screwed up. A lot screwed up, sometimes.

This girl Ashley was talking up there, and I noticed she was kind of pretty, nice blue eyes. She was talking about trying to succeed and to keep trying if you fail and stuff. That was pretty good, but she sort of seemed a little sad, like she was talking about something specific but in this vague way. I could do that, maybe. Talk about the screwed up stuff but in a way where no one would know what I was really talking about.

The teacher called my name and I felt that sinking feeling. I'd have to go up there with everyone staring at me. So I sighed and stood up and went onto the stage, the lights shining on me. I took off the hat with the horns I was wearing. At the start of the class she'd given us all hats or a prop or something. Stood there shifting from one foot to the other, and I couldn't see any of them because the lights at the foot of the stage were shining in my face, and it started to seem like I was alone on that stage, alone in space and time. Isolated. It was weird, like when you play Marco/Polo in the water and you're closing your eyes and calling out, "Marco!" and they answer but you can't find them and it just starts to seem that you're alone, floating in that water.

"I am-Craig Manning. Thank you," I said, and started to walk down and off the stage, that was it. I had nothing to say, nothing I could say.

"Craig, we know your name. Now we want to know about you," she said, the teacher, Ms. Kwan. She was pretty, too. Black straight hair and the slanted eyes, which I always liked. It was exotic. I took a deep breath and went back to the spot where I was standing, I'd have to say something. No getting out of it.

And suddenly, standing up there, the lights in my eyes making me dizzy, making me feel really alone, what I wanted to tell them was that I wanted to kill myself and if I did no one would give a shit. Not anyone here because no one knew me here. Not my mother because she was dead. Not my step-father because I never even saw him anyway. Maybe my sister would care, if she understood it at all. She was little. All it would mean is she'd never see me again but she hardly sees me now. And how about my dad? Would he care if I just offed myself? Would he really? Sometimes, at home, when he's strapping me or kicking me or punching me I feel like he wants to kill me anyway so what would it matter if I did it? What would it matter in the scheme of things? With all the billions of people who lived here and all of the space and time around us and behind us and in front of us? The vastness of the universe, the massive amounts of matter and all that shit? What was I in all of that? How was it that I mattered? That anyone did?

So I said something sort of like that, just substituted disappearing for killing myself. It's sort of the same. I'd disappear. Like my mother disappeared. And the teacher seemed a little bit, I don't know, sort of surprised by what I said. Sort of unsure. Maybe she got the subtext. Who knew? And I felt stupid for saying that kind of existential stuff but I didn't want to talk about myself or anything too real.

The first day was done. I'd felt so tense all day, so uncertain of the kids at this school and where stuff was and all of that. After school I went to see my sister Angie. She was my mom's daughter but not my dad's. That made her pretty fucking lucky. Oh well. She was at this daycare for a bit until Emma picked her up. I was older than Emma. Why couldn't I watch her? Life was not fair at all.

"We're going to see mommy today. Want to come?" she said. She meant they were gong to the cemetery. I wanted to go. Sure I did. But my dad said not to see her or to see Joey and so I couldn't go. My dad was not a person to disobey. I tried not to anyway. Tried not to get caught when I did.

"No. Just say hi for me, okay?" I said, and then I saw her daycare teacher coming over and took off. You never knew who would say what. The daycare teacher might tell Joey I was there, or some kid with my description and Joey would figure it out and call my dad and then…well, it would not be good. So I ran before the lady could see me.

But I went to the cemetery, saw Joey and Angie with the flowers and everything, yellow, just like mom liked. I snapped a few shots of them. Watched Ang gently put the flowers down on the grave. Then Joey looked over right to where I was hidden behind some rich dead guy's huge monument.

"Craig," he said, sort of puzzled, his eyes narrowed. I took off. Shit, shit. Joey saw me. He did. He called my name. Fuck. He was gonna tell my dad, probably. And then I'd be in trouble, so much trouble, damn it.

"Craig!" he called again and I ran so fast. He saw me. I just prayed he wouldn't tell my dad.

I was home on time that night for supper. I'd been late the night before and was pretty lucky about it, actually. My dad was pissed but he didn't, well, you know. But he felt sorry for getting so mad at me since I was only a little late, jeez. So tonight he made my favorite meal. Asked about school and I told him about Sean and everything. Then he said there was a message on his machine today and he said it funny and I felt scared.

"For me?" I said, drinking my juice, looking at him.

"No. For me. From Joey Jeremiah. Any thoughts, any ideas why he might be calling?"

I shook my head no. He was sort of playing with me. He suspected I'd seen Angela and that was probably why he was calling and I was gonna be in a shit load of trouble and he knew it and I knew it but still he asks me why I thought he called. That was part of why my dad was a jerk.

"No,"

"You didn't call him, did you?" he said, and I looked at his black rimmed glasses, at the roast beef on the carving plate in the middle of the table, at the table cloth touching my jeans.

"No. Why would I do that?" I said, drinking more juice, feeling nervous. My dad's temper was, it was bad. He was sort of mad now, just because Joey called. He didn't even know why yet.

I closed my eyes. It was a cat and mouse game. There was all this tension. It was because of him, he was always getting so angry. So I screwed up a lot. Didn't all kids screw up? Why did he have to be so…mean? Why? I hated things a lot of the time. Hated school, hated home, hated my dad's temper, hated not seeing Angie, hated that my mom was dead, hated myself. It made suicide seem like a glittering fine option. Sometimes it did.


End file.
